The invention at hand relates to roller bearing replacement device for exchange of a roller bearing of a roller hearth furnace, that has a housing which can be sealed off from the external atmosphere, that has a sluice on its front side which can be docked, through which access to a roller bearing of the roller hearth furnace that is to be demounted is possible from the inside of the housing while excluding the external atmosphere, and at least one roller bearing handling device that is designed for demounting and installation of roller bearings that is arranged in a moveable manner inside the housing and is designed to move out at least partly out of the housing through the sluice.
A roller bearing replacement device of the type identified at the beginning is for example known from the patent DE 10 2011 079 771 A1. This roller bearing replacement device is moveable laterally near the roller hearth furnace and has an enclosed carrier roller bearing handling device, i.e. housed in a housing. This known roller bearing exchange device is positioned with a platform alongside at the corresponding exchange position for replacement and pulled up at the roller hearth furnace. During an exchange of a roller bearing, a lance of the carrier roller bearing handling device then travels into the hollow roller bearing and lifts up the roller bearing that is to be replaced, whereby the lance then pulls the roller bearing together with an isolation plug that is arranged at the longitudinal end of the roller bearing out of the roller hearth furnace through a hole in which the roller bearing is placed during operation in a rotatable manner.
If the moveable platform is placed on two different supported rails of which one rail is affixed to the wall of the hall and the other rail is affixed to the furnace platform, this can be disadvantageous. This is because the two rails can have different sagging or deflections on the side of the oven and on the side of the hall, which must first be determined by some method and then corrected or balanced out, so that both the roller bearing that is to be demounted as well as the roller bearing that is to be installed can be transported from and to the roller hearth furnace without tilting or twisting each roller bearing during the movement into or out of the roller hearth furnace. It can also happen that in the region of a roller bearing of the roller hearth furnace that is to be replaced it is not positioned exactly horizontal, so that consequently the roller bearing that is deployed in this region is not positioned horizontally, so that this must be taken note of when replacing the roller bearing, in order that the roller bearing that is to be replaced or the roller bearing that is being installed do not tilt or twist inside the roller hearth furnace. In addition to this vertical misalignment, in case of roller bearings that have been installed tilted, horizontal inaccuracies can also be present, if for example the roller bearing furnace is installed inclined with respect to the wall of the furnace. These alignment problems and inaccuracies represent a great problem for the roller bearing replacement device that is known from the patent DE 10 2011 079 771 A1 and can lead to the roller bearing that is being installed getting tilted or twisted.